‘I understand. Is this all right?’ Elizabeth asked, raising her voice.
‘Clear as a bell. No need to shout. Now what can I do for you?’
‘You knew the Foleys from Castle House, I’m told?’
The old woman sucked her teeth and raised her eyes to the ceiling.
‘I did. I did. God rest them.’
Elizabeth paused, waiting for Mrs Lynch to begin a litany of tragedies, but instead she appeared to be waiting for another question. Elizabeth reached into her pocket and produced the wedding photograph she had found at Abbey Court. She pushed it across the table to the old lady.
‘I wondered if you could tell me who these people are?’
Mrs Lynch picked up the picture and peered at it.
‘God help us,’ she said with quiet affection. ‘Isn’t that Teddy’s wedding day? I was there myself. Such a happy day. Would you look at Mrs Foley beaming. And poor Mary, there in all her finery. Terrible sad.’
Elizabeth leaned forward.
‘What was so sad?’
‘Well …’ Suddenly she stopped and took off her glasses. ‘Sorry. Who did you say you were? What are the Foleys to you?’
Elizabeth hesitated. ‘I am … my father was, is, Edward, Teddy Foley.’
Mrs Lynch looked puzzled and then it was as if a fog had lifted. She quickly put her glasses back on. A wide smile spread across her face and her eyes brimmed with tears.
‘Elizabeth? Oh, my God. After all these years, just look at you! Elizabeth Foley all grown up and back in Muirinish!’
‘You knew me when I was a baby?’ Elizabeth found the old woman’s emotional state infectious. She too felt close to tears.
‘Knew you? Sure, didn’t I raise you! You bounced on my knee next door, I couldn’t fill the bottles for you fast enough. You were a lovely little thing. Elizabeth Foley. I can hardly credit it.’
‘You raised me?’ Now it was Elizabeth’s turn to look perplexed.
‘Well, for the first few months of your life. You know, after your mother died.’
‘I don’t understand. My mother only died last year.’
‘No.’ Mrs Lynch picked up the faded photograph, shaking her head. ‘No, dear,’ she repeated softly and pointed to the bride. ‘Mary Foley was your mother, but she died in labour. It nearly sent old Mrs Foley over the edge. That’s why I stepped in to help. There was no way she could have coped and poor old Edward wouldn’t have known where to start. They really were blighted, that family. So, it must have been the other one raised you?’
‘The other one?’ Elizabeth’s mouth was dry. So many questions darting around her mind. Was this old woman right? She might just be confused.
‘Patricia. My mother was called Patricia.’ She spoke as clearly as she could, hoping to jog Mrs Lynch’s memory.
‘Patricia!’ she called out triumphantly. ‘If you had put a gun to my head I wouldn’t have been able to remember that woman’s name! And where was it she took you after?’
‘Buncarragh. It’s just on the Laois–Kilkenny border.’ Elizabeth spoke the words calmly but she felt frantic. The possibility that what this woman was saying might be true seemed stronger every moment.
‘Oh yes, I remember hearing it was somewhere up the country.’
Elizabeth wasn’t listening. Her breathing had become fast and shallow. She had remembered what Rosemary had said about the baby appearing to be older. It was as if a heavy curtain had been cast aside, allowing light to flood in. Her mother hadn’t been pregnant when she went to Cork. She had never been pregnant. Elizabeth realised with a sickening jolt that she was about to cry. She hoped she could control it but no, out it poured like a flash flood of sobs and snot. She tried to speak but couldn’t. Her face was contorted into a twisted mask of tears. She could hear her own voice making a shuddering moan.
Mrs Lynch looked horrified. ‘Oh. Oh, I’m sorry. It must be a shock for you. I’m sorry.’ She hauled herself to her feet and turned in small futile circles. ‘There must be a hanky here somewhere.’ Spying a roll of kitchen towel by the sink she went to get it. Elizabeth was desperately trying to control her breathing, but the hot sobs kept rolling through her body. Why had this hit her so hard? It was a shock but it was also a sharp, stabbing sense of regret. Her mother had loved her in ways she had never understood. She had taken another woman’s child and raised her as her own. Somehow that love seemed purer. She hadn’t been lumbered with a daughter, she had chosen to care for her and love her and protect her from her past. Discovering the truth now, when her mother was gone, seemed so cruel, so unfair.